The offices of medical and dental practitioners usually contain one or more autoclaves or steam sterilizers for sterilizing reusable medical and dental instruments. For example, in a dental office the autoclave is used to sterilize picks, mirrors, drill bits, hand pieces and the like. At one time the instruments to be sterilized were put on a tray and then placed into the sterilizer. While this sterilized the instruments, the aseptic conditions were not necessarily maintained if the instruments were mishandled in removing them from the sterilizer.
Autoclave pouches then were introduced for holding the instruments during sterilizing. The pouches generally comprise a strip of plastic film sealed on three sides to a paper backing. Instruments to be sterilized are loaded into the pouch, the pouch is sealed and then it is placed into the autoclave. Usually the pouch includes an indicator that changes color to indicate that the contents have reached a sterilizing temperature. Generally this is 135–137° C. After sterilization, the instruments are kept in the pouch until they are needed. Thus the pouches provide a barrier to recontamination and can be handled and moved without the risk of contaminating the sterilized instruments within the pouch. Since the instruments can be of various sizes, it is necessary for the dental/medical or other health practitioner to keep a supply of pouches in various sizes on hand.
In a more recent advancement, the instruments are put into a see-through plastic bag. The bag is heat sealed and then put into the autoclave. Plastic bags are a more viable alternative to the paper/plastic pouches in several respects. For example, plastic bags are less expensive to manufacture than the paper/plastic pouches and are easier to recycle. Plastic bags also are more convenient in that the contents can be viewed through either side of the bag rather than just the clear side of the paper/plastic pouch. Also there is no need to stock a variety of sizes. Fewer sizes can be stocked because the bags can be heat sealed so a practitioner can subdivide a larger bag into smaller custom sized units. This is done prior to use by cutting a larger bag either transversely or longitudinally and then applying additional heat seals to form a smaller bag. Cutting and forming smaller bags either can be done in advance of loading instruments into a bag or after loading. For example, a small instrument can be loaded into a larger bag. The bag then is closed by heat sealing close to the instrument and then the excess material is cut off. The excess material, which now is open at its opposite ends, is heat sealed across one end to form a new bag that is smaller in one dimension than the original bag.
While the use of plastic bags in this manner has found some acceptance, the procedure required the repeated operation of the heat sealer to close a first bag and then to form a second bag. The present invention addresses this problem and simplifies the sterilizing procedure by reducing the steps of closing and forming bags.